A Day to Say Goodbye
by KatyaKatianaKaterina
Summary: Its slash people. Don't like, don't read. I would like to thank geekis chic for the beta. I also don't own any of the recognizable characters.


A Day Too Say Goodbye.

These four men may not know much about what was going to happen in their lives, but they knew one thing. They would forever remain in their dark holes of existence; their one chance of redemption had been lost. Their one chance had bleed to death in a warehouse and on a jewelry store floor, their only chance had been buried alive in the desert, and destroyed in a car explosion. They had made their mistakes and they had paid the price.

There was one main question in the back of their minds on those days. How often does a person say what they need to say? They didn't and now they couldn't. They had all had their pasts and they had their losses, and they had let them shape who they were. Now for most people that is not a bad thing, but these four had let their pasts shape their lives in such a way that they had closed themselves off. They had shut out those who needed them the most, who they needed the most.

These reasons still do not completely explain why on that day, these four men in four different parts of the country would sit in a dark bar or a loud nightclub, and mourn the loss of what could have been. Maybe it was because they hoped to hide from the world as they drowned in their regrets, or maybe the surroundings caused them to remember the best about what they had lost, or maybe they just wanted to get blind drunk and forget about what haunted them.

These were all very valid reasons for them to be there, but the truth was that they went there to reflect, they went there to reflect on what they had, had, what they had lost, and where they were supposed to go from there. They went there looking for the answers to questions that they never knew that they had, that they never knew needed to be answered. They couldn't find the answers in the bottom of a shot glass or at the end of a bottle of bourbon, because there were no answers to be found, no explanations to be given, nothing left to understand. How could there be when the answers, had been right in front of them, and they had just let them slip thru their fingers.

It is not often that people get a second chance. A second chance for what you may ask? While there are many different types of second chances, and each second chance means something different, for some it is another chance at love, for others it is a second chance of happiness, but for most it is a second chance at redemption. For those men it was all three and many more.

For NCIS Special agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, it was a second chance at love, and a second chance at having the life he had lost so long before. Gibbs never expected to find love again, yes there had been other women, other redheads, but if the three ex-wives and string of broken relationships was any evidence, that love had never come. Then came that fateful day when he got into an argument over jurisdiction with Baltimore Homicide Detective Anthony Dinozzo. He sure didn't know that the cocky Italian would change his life, but after a few crazy days and solving one odd case he had convinced Dinozzo to come work for him in D.C.

Maybe he shouldn't have, maybe it would have been better to leave things as they were and just leave Dinozzo in Baltimore. But he didn't and eventually he fell in love with the cocky senior agent, and his senior agent fell in love with him. Everything was good for a while, but then everything began to fall apart. If he looked back and really thought about it he could probably tell you that the whole relationship began to unravel when Kate died, and it just fell apart from there. Then came the explosion and with it the burden to have to once again mourn the loss of his wife and daughter. At that point Gibbs did the only thing he knew how when things got tough he left. By the time he was ready to return it was too late, he had already lost Dinozzo but he was too caught up in his own troubles to see it.

When the truth about Dinozzo's undercover mission had come to light Gibbs wasn't too surprised, but in the blinding fury of that car explosion he realized what he had lost. If he had looked back he would have been able to see that the man who he had loved was falling apart, but at the time he was so blinded by his own grief that he just didn't give a damn. By the time he was able to see the truth it too late. The positive identification of Anthony Dinozzo's body was just another nail in his coffin.

For Horitio Caine it wasn't a second chance but a first chance at a real life, a chance at love, and a chance at peace. Caine was a man with a dark past, many boys with pasts like his sure don't grow up to run crime labs, but he had. He had gotten the hell out of New York City as soon as he could. But no matter how far he ran he was never able to forget about the way his father had treated him, his mother and his brother. So he made it his mission in life to help those who had been in his mother's situation no matter the cost.

This in itself was his downfall, he was so busy taking care of those that needed him, that he couldn't see what he wanted, what he needed. Tim Speedle was just another New York bad boy who had grown up on the wrong side of the tracks, but somehow he managed to make something of himself. He sure did leave an impression on everybody around him, especially Horitio. But horitio never imagined that he would fall in love with him. He did, but no matter how much Speed gave him he was unable to let himself go. He was unable to make himself vulnerable, and so he pushed Speed away. He became so distacted and so caught up in his own world that he was unable to see that Speed had his own problems. He didn't realize the severity of the problem until that fateful day in the jewelry store. When Speed's gun misfired and he got shot. Speed bled to death on that jewelry store floor and there was nothing Caine could do to save him.

Gil Grissom was a man of science, he only believed in what there was evidence to back up. Gil didn't believe in love because there was no proof. He had, had a chance at truly seeing what life really met, he had a chance at seeing a world beyond bugs, test tubes, and the glass walls of his office. That chance came with his decision to hire CSI Nick Stokes; the Texan had come to Las Vegas for a new start. He found that new start, and he even found love. He found that love in Gil, but Gil was either unable or unwilling to reciprocate or try to even give living a real life a shot. Nothing happened, it wasn't even until Gil saw the video of Nick in that box and the fear on his face that he began to realize the truth. By then it was too late, the clock ticked down, and Nick ran out of air.

Mac Taylor too had received a second chance at love, he had found his love, his life in his wife Claire, but then that fateful day had come when the towers had fallen. The love of his life just became a name on the long list of victims who would forever remain buried in the rubble. After the confirmation of his wife's death Mac had just stopped living. Mac buried himself in his work, and he hid away from the world that he had once been a part of. Eventually things began to change, things changed as time passed. Slowly he was once again able to live his life

The change and his ability to move on had been helped along by one person in particular NYPD Detective Danny Messer. Mac had hired Danny against great scrutiny. Danny had a past, now everybody has a past but Danny's past was not a pleasant one. Mac didn't take any of what he had heard at face value. It was a good thing that he didn't because if he had Mac would have never started to live again. Things went great until Danny's past caught up with him and everything began to fall apart. After the Minhas shooting everything did fall apart and Mac pushed Danny away.

Nothing was ever normal after that. Mac had to fire Aidan and he hired Montana girl Lindsay Monroe as her replacement. Things kept changing as Danny began to fall for her and as he did so he left Mac behind. Mac began a relationship with Peyton and his past with Danny was completely forgotten, then the drug bust had happened and Danny and Adam had been taken hostage. Mac didn't find out what had happened until it was too late, Danny had been shot, and he had bled to death on a dirty warehouse floor.

That was it, this was their history. This was what caused them to sit in a bar on that day. This is what caused them to feel so guilty. All four of these men would have had to have been extremely egotistical to believe that it was their actions that had caused the death of the ones that they had loved. In all actuality it was more than likely fate or destiny. There was probably nothing they could have done to stop the deaths. If those four hadn't died the way they did then they probably would have been killed some other way or at some other time.

This knowledge didn't change the facts though, they had died, but the deaths could have been prevented. The fact was that Tony was up to something, the disappearances, the so called doctor appointments, and even the change in his personality, screamed something. Gibbs just didn't bother to look closely enough to find it. He should have Tony was begging for help, Tony was slowly being consumed by his undercover job. All he had, had to do was look a little more closely. If he had he would have seen the destructive path that Tony was on. If he had then there was a chance that Tony would have never gone to see her that night. If he had then Tony would have probably never gotten into his car. But he hadn't and so he paid the price. He was forced to watch as Tony's car exploded taking with it not only the one he loved, but also any chance he had at a different life.

It was clear that Speed had a problem with guns, everybody knew it. So it was very easy to see why he did not clean his gun. If Horatio had just paid a little more attention to what was going on with those that he was supposed to care about, then maybe just maybe he would have noticed what was going on with Speed. Maybe just maybe he would have done something about it. All it would have taken would have been a conversation. If he had done something about it then Speed's gun would have not misfired, and he wouldn't have died. Horatio lost the chance to move on from his past, and to live a real life.

Gil was the only one of the four who couldn't truly blame himself in any way for what happened to Nick. Yes, he was the one who sent Nick out to the alley, but Nick and Warrick flipped a coin to find out who was going out there. The fact that it was Nick who went out to that alley, the fact that he had been kidnapped was all due to chance. Gil couldn't help but feel a large amount of guilt. There had to have been something that he could have done to save Nick. Maybe what it came down to, maybe the reason why he felt so guilty was that it seemed like he had done nothing. He didn't just sit back and do nothing, but he could have tried harder. Finding Nick had never been impossible, he just hadn't tried hard enough. And so there went with Nick any chance he had, had at a real life.

Mac was the one who possibly felt the most guilt when it came to the death of the one that he had loved. Mac had vowed when he had hired Danny that he would never judge him on his past, but he had. Yes Danny had made some big mistakes, but Mac had done the unthinkable, he had walked away. Mac had walked away when Danny had needed him most and at that point there was no going back. Mac knew that he had pushed Danny away from him and right into the arms of one Lindsay Monroe. If he hadn't pushed Danny away then Danny would have never taken Lindsay's shift, and he would not have died in that warehouse. Not that the alternative of Lindsay dying or being hurt was any better, but as horrible as it seems if Mac could have chosen he would have preferred Lindsay to be in the warehouse.

Probably the worst part of the whole deal was that Mac didn't even bother to check to see if Danny was ok after he noticed that he hadn't seen Danny since he had talked to him earlier that morning. He just left with Peyton and he didn't even find out that Danny was dead until after he had arrived in London. All of his chances that he might have had at a better life died with Danny on that warehouse floor. Peyton stayed in London and Mac was left to return to New York alone.

Most people would tell you that all four of these men were pretty much uncaring, and unfeeling bastards whose only focus was on solving the crimes and finding justice both for the dead and for those who are left behind. This was who they had to be, this was the only way that they could do their jobs. If they ever showed weakness, if they ever revealed their feelings they would fall apart. They also had to be strong for those that they worked with, and for those around them. These people they worked with were depending on them, they had to be tough. They had to be to make sure that everybody who they worked with made it home at the end of the day.

This was why today was so important. This was the one day of the year where they could show their guilt. This was the day that they could mourn what they had lost, and reflect on the mistakes they had made. They could reveal these weaknesses without the fear of retribution and without the fear of judgment. This was the one day each year that they could not only reflect on all of the bad times, but they could remember the good. This was the day that they could use what they had learned from their loves to begin to make themselves better people. This was their day, their day to mourn, their day to reflect, their day to change, and their day to say goodbye.


End file.
